Supplemental Post #3 Josie Andrews

Josie Andrews

Supplemental #3

I struggled a bit with the Britton Reading, so even though I did a supplemental post over the week-end, I thought it might help me to do another supplemental posting to flesh out my thoughts.  Not sure if anything I say here is correct or not.

The readings this week explore the construction of masculinity on a screen and the interplay between star and genre. On the one hand, such construction is dependent upon external factors, such as the star’s own persona and our cultural conceptions of masculinity at a given time. But, irrespective of the star’s image or our own opinions, a film’s construction of masculinity (or any other character) will also be determined by preestablished, internal generic codes. What is a hero, a villain? Which is most influential—internal or external factors—is the subject of Andrew Britton’s “Stars and Genre” Reading. While Dyer and Britton agree that, just as an actor cannot escape association with the movie genres in which he/she has appeared, the genre cannot escape actors who have previously appeared in its films and will be affected in some manner by the meanings stars bring to the film. However, Dyer sees the star vehicle as a genre due to continuities of iconography (how the star dresses, is made up, mannerisms of performance, and repeated settings), visual style (how photographed and put in a frame), and structure (function and role in film’s plot and symbolism) across a star’s film career that create expectations in film audiences just like genre conventions do.  

In contrast, while Britton agrees that a genre can only be read with regard to the star’s other performances within that genre, e.g. like a subset of genre, Britton sees genre as an important commodity that Hollywood is selling. Genre therefore is a pre-condition to the star or any star vehicle. So, in a Western genre, Britton would argue that John Wayne’s role of the cowboy hero precedes and dictates to the star his role on screen rather than the role being structured around Wayne’s persona.  Of course, Wayne’s persona on screen seems to gather all the qualities of the genre in his facial expressions, movements and speech, but even if Wayne impacted audience expectations of what a Western anti-hero should act like, any contradictions, Britton would say are latent/hidden within the particular genre (Britton discusses Now. Voyager as a Bette Davis film, but Bette Davis is a sub-section of the sophisticated comedy/melodrama). Britton states: “The personae of John Wayne, Gary Cooper, James Stewart, Henry Fonda and Clint Eastwood are all quite distinct, but none of them can be discussed significantly without reference to the concept of the Western hero which they have at various times embodied, or to the tensions within the myth of the White American history, refracted through a specific contemporary moment, which the genre articulates” (202).

I was trying to relate this Reading to more contemporary films. Meg Ryan excels in dizzy romantic comedy films, but she does still work within genre conventions of romantic comedies. Likewise, Robin Williams’ films—even his dramatic roles—highlighted his comedic abilities but he was still constrained by the expected conventions of a character-based comedy. This does not mean that genres are closed or discrete; certainly, stars and films can cross genres (thinking of Eddie Murphy, Robin Williams and Will Smith who both infuse dramas with a sense of humor).

I’m still not sure if the star precedes the genre or the genre precedes the star. There is probably some truth in both theories. I do think that it is rare in most of the movies we have watched in class for a role to completely contradict the characteristics associated with the star’s persona, and at least some films seem to match the star to the film’s premise, which of course is linked to the familiar conventions that establish generic representations. I am thinking about Marilyn Monroe’s “dumb blonde” roles, John Wayne’s westerns, and Bette Davis’s strong female roles. At the same time, I think genres and films would become very static and boring if we did not allow genres to shed some of the conventions of the past to incorporate in new stars who bring performances that are outside our expectations. Britton seems to agree with “unauthorized use” of a genre, noting that, since audience are embracing the conventions of a specific genre, e.g. a horror film, as long as those conventions are not completely violated, filmmakers can subtly interject not only contradictions or hidden characteristics of the genre but even aspects of other genres and social commentary.  

   

One last point, on page 205, using Now, Voyager, Britton discusses the critical importance of the star’s (Bette Davis) first appearance in a film. Flouting audience expectations to see a beautiful Bette Davis, her first appearance is a shocking dowdy, ugly mouse. Of course, the audience knows that there will be a transformation, and part of the anticipation is waiting for the swan to emerge. This issue was raised by me and a number of other students re: John Wayne’s first appearance on screen in Stagecoach.  He is youthful, masculine, a clear wise-cracking anti-hero with a slow drawl, and instantly likeable. of the star in a film is very important. He discusses in Now Voyager, how people are waiting to see Betty Davies, but instead they see this ugly woman. The shock of her look makes her uglier because people were expecting a beautiful woman. Her “ugliness” becomes even worse, yet this works later in the film so that when she is beautiful, she is even more beautiful because she went from being so ugly through the spectator’s eyes. The filmmaker can play on a stars’ looks to make points in films more drastic.